When Dead Space 2 launches in January 2011, players will be promptly deployed onto a derelict space station, inhabited almost exclusively by things designed to eat them. Those things aren’t some random generic alien menace from the far-flung stars, however, but the station’s erstwhile citizens now grotesquely malformed by a particularly virulent strain of acne.
“The inspiration for the ‘necromorph’ infection comes almost entirely from the disgusting world of parasitic fungus; a mycology textbook reads like a horror novel,” Ian Milham, art director of Dead Space 2 developer Visceral Games, tells Wired. “We looked at human anatomy, the bones, sinews, organs, et cetera, and tried to think how they might be rearranged into something horrific. The more we made them look like normal people who went through something terrible, the deeper the emotional impact.”
Emotional impact, I’m sure, but I daresay not even the Reach for a Dream foundation is going to be dropping off Xboxes on the Sprawl any time soon.
Apparently the design team also compiled a bunch of gross medical, autopsy, and accident photographs as reference material in a folder labelled “BODY TRAUMA: WARNING! EXTREMELY GRAPHIC!”
I’d probably have labelled it “LOLCATS.”
Check out the Wired article for a gallery of repulsive concept art and screenshots from the game.
Discuss Dead Space’s mycological design roots on the MyGaming forum.
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